Comcast Made My Mom Buy 2 NEW TV's! PREYING ON THE ELDERLY?

Remember the commercials informing us that we were about to go digital? As I recall, they said that if we already had cable, there was no need to worry. Now they are making us all get boxes? My mother, who has no clue about technology, freaked out & called to get the boxes. They had old cables, so the Comcast Guy drilled holes all over her front porch. She now has visible wires leading up to her front porch. After that mess, he informs them that the 2 TV's she has need replaced. Both TV's are cable ready. She went to Walmart & bought 2 crappy 26" TV's for $600.00! I wish she would have called me when all this was going on, but she is older & figured her stuff was out dated! This is such a joke. Are they getting kickbacks from Walmart to con people into buying new tv's? I am NOT getting a box. I will swith to Dish Network or Direct TV for what they've done to my family! I think instead of paying big bucks for Shaq to appear in their stupid commercials with the NOT FUNNY AT ALL Ben Stein, they should knock a few bucks off all our cable bills!

Re: Comcast Made My Mom Buy 2 NEW TV's! PREYING ON THE ELDERLY?

My 82 year old mother got her box today. It was hooked up and now we are supposed to tell her which of the 50 differant buttons turn it off and on . This will not work and I am not buying a new tv! This is crazy. I dont know what we are going to do with this. There is no way she will get it. I hate the change !

Re: Comcast Made My Mom Buy 2 NEW TV's! PREYING ON THE ELDERLY?

Seriously did anyone at comcast do any kind of user impact study on the elderly for the deployment of these wonky boxes?

My father in law is 84 years old. He managed his tv and VCR for the last ten years. Three years ago his sole mate of 65 years died. So TV is a major of comfort and communications for him.

He is financially well enough off he could by a new 27" digital set with QM tuner, as the comcast reps suggested. He had it hooked up and life was OK even without the VCR. Yeah yeah yeah, he should go buy a DVR like Tivo. way to complex way to much money.

But now three months down the road, you folks have handed him one of these wonky little DTA boxes and another remote control. Poor guy. He is so confused. Forget the VCR and him recording his sunday morning TV church service. He can't even figure out how to watch TV. All he has to do is accidentally pick up the proper remote control and change the channel from 3, and he is totally confused and has to wait two or three days for a visitor to help him get back to the correct setup.

He often just turns the set off and sets in his chair as it is so hard to make this ridiculous configuration work..

For the poor elderly that can't afford new sets and have to stay with Analog, it is a tough road. Even if they stay with OTA, those conversion boxes are tough to mange as they require two remotes. Got that.

But to trick people into buying new sets, then after a few months ship them these wonky little boxes and make them suffer with two remotes and still suffer with analog????

Shame on you comcast,,,, shame on you!

You comcast are so concerned about your stock price and keeping people from stealing your signal by climbing telephone poles to tap cables you are throwing many of the elderly under the bus.

Wareagle57, and suggest these folks after a few months take their sets back to the store? You are kidding right?

Re: Comcast Made My Mom Buy 2 NEW TV's! PREYING ON THE ELDERLY?

There are comcast employees here that do monitor the forum. They are listed as the ones with the comcast in their name and I believe it's red.....being color blind I can't say for sure. If you have a specific issue you'd like to take up with them I'd try comcastgeorge.

Re: Comcast Made My Mom Buy 2 NEW TV's! PREYING ON THE ELDERLY?

yes there are comcast employees that monitor the forums. Don't confuse that with any sense of these issues being escalated up the management chain of the company.

Do to some serious network performance issues I was contacted by a regional customer manager. While I had this person on the phone I brought up the serious dissatisfaction issues with the DTAs being deployed within customers homes. This person had no idea what so ever of the issue.

Re: Comcast Made My Mom Buy 2 NEW TV's! PREYING ON THE ELDERLY?

and nobody held a gun to her head and said buy new tv's . if you are unhappy with your service , or the way your services are evolving to meet the demands of the other 98% that demand this migration , then switch providers .

Re: Comcast Made My Mom Buy 2 NEW TV's! PREYING ON THE ELDERLY?

Gunzlo,

was was told for months and months and months if i was with comcast i didnt need a box, i aso went and bought new tv's if i knew this was goin to happen i wouldnthave.no way would i spend $1000's on tv just to get the lousy signal i get now. think its time to go back to rabbit ears,oh yea there trying to take that from us too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Comcast Made My Mom Buy 2 NEW TV's! PREYING ON THE ELDERLY?

Gunzlo,

My guess is you might not have an elderly relative to care for. They can't just throw these sets in the back of their car and head back to Best Buy. We all also realize how few choices there are for other cable providers. They have all carved up their territories and there is very little competition.

Like Wolfe46 my father in law did exactly what comcast told him to do and bought two new digital sets.. Four months later the DTA showed up. Do you think Best Buy will be able to take these units back?

Re: Comcast Made My Mom Buy 2 NEW TV's! PREYING ON THE ELDERLY?

Comcast said. To be ready for the FEDERAL transition, you need either, a digital tv connected directly to an antenna, their cable service, or an antenna connected to a digital box. They never said you need to buy a new tv to connect to their service.

Re: Comcast Made My Mom Buy 2 NEW TV's! PREYING ON THE ELDERLY?

Almost true. For our family, my father in law, The conversation was if they kept the old set there would have to be a second box, we now know as the DTA. This is just to complex for an elderly person. If they were to buy a digital TV it would directly connect (this is VERY important point) to their current comcast plan. There was no mention of local channels only , a subset of the current plan, or the little black box that was still required for their digital set. The DTAs showed up months later.

Re: Comcast Made My Mom Buy 2 NEW TV's! PREYING ON THE ELDERLY?

wolfie46 wrote:

no u dont but u do if u wanted the local hd channels thru them

I'm sorry, but I have zero idea what you are trying to say here. Are you saying comcast said you have to buy a digital tv to get your local channels in hd here? I really really have no idea what you mean here.

Re: Comcast Made My Mom Buy 2 NEW TV's! PREYING ON THE ELDERLY?

jasleinstein wrote:

Almost true. For our family, my father in law, The conversation was if they kept the old set there would have to be a second box, we now know as the DTA. This is just to complex for an elderly person. If they were to buy a digital TV it would directly connect (this is VERY important point) to their current comcast plan. There was no mention of local channels only , a subset of the current plan, or the little black box that was still required for their digital set. The DTAs showed up months later.

If you are talking about first the federal transition, then the dta you are referring to two very seperate issues. First comcast said to the federal transition back last year that if you were directly connected to their cable you'd be fine. If you were receiving your signal via rabbit ears than you either needed a digital tv, or a digital tuner. That transition is not comcat's world of more campaign.

I truly don't find the dta to be all that confusing to an elderly person, heck I taught my 87 year old grandmother how to use a digital set top box, and my 82 year old grandmother how to use a dta. They aren't all that complex at the end of the day.

Re: Comcast Made My Mom Buy 2 NEW TV's! PREYING ON THE ELDERLY?

No the major reason to buy the digital set was to avoid having two boxes.

Comcast was clear, if he kept the analog TV he would have to use the converter box, as we now know as the DTA.

As with most elderly, they have a hard time dealing with tv VCR recorders, tivos, etc, because the dual tuner thing messes them up. have seen it many times, a Best Buy Geek Squad manger told us it is the number one service call they get for seniors. If they tune the TV off channel 3 or 4 , they have no idea what went wrong and what to do.

Back to the specifics. Comcast also told us that if he had this new digital TV he would not need the converter box because the TV was digital and his current comcast services would and did work fine for a couple months. Then came the comcast (not federal OTA ) digital conversion. He was then sent a DTA to re-complicate his TV and all heck broke loose.

In hind site, as we can read all over these postings, clearly the comcast reps were not well informed about the DTAs coming down the pike and would be a requirement for every single set in the house, less the HD and cable card ones of course, and the people that only want local coverage and not the "Digital basic Package".

No not local channels, the Digital Basic package." What is it 100 channels or whatever, plus the local HD ones.

on a side note,

Which is a little weird. If you use the Digital Basic Service" 100 plus or what ever service, and you want to watch the local HD channels, you have to watch them in analog because the DTA only sends out a analog signal. Sure sure I have seen the posts about using an A/B switch.

1: many sets like ours (these are purchased in the last two years) only have three kinds

of inputs, three or four HDMI, one or two component inputs, and ONE coax input. So there is no way to use a switcher.

Re: Comcast Made My Mom Buy 2 NEW TV's! PREYING ON THE ELDERLY?

No not the federal OTA conversion. It has nothing to do with comcast customers .

The conversion I am referring to is the comcast conversion to digital.

I can't comment on your experiences in third party with your 87 and 82 year old grandmothers (BTW congratulations on having two still alive) . But as I stated in my other post, way up the list on trouble calls for groups like Geek Squad, for seniors is this dual tuner bit. I am guessing here, but if your grandmother is the same age as my mother and father, you are a generation younger than I. Every single friend we have that have senior parents with comcast have this very same issue. It is to complex for people over 70 or so to use.

I would ask you to consider "complexity". It all depends from where you stand.

With the number of seniors living alone, in assisted living facilities, or car homes, TV is a major source of entertainment for seniors. In my opinion comcast has created a situation that demonstrates their stock price is more important than helping and serving their senior citizen customers. Sigh.